Cordoba Photography Biennial

The Cordoba Photography Biennial celebrates its 19th edition, demonstrating the vitality of a project promoted by the Cordoba City Council and AFOCO, which was pioneered in the 1980s. It is the oldest photography festival held in Spain and one of the first to embrace this artistic language. At that time, the discipline was weakly represented in museums and was just beginning to establish itself in the art market. In its successive editions, the Cordoba Photography Biennial, without neglecting the history of the medium and its collecting, has explored the current state of the photographic image from various perspectives, always with curiosity and pursuing the difficult balance between the young and the established, the global and the local.

The history of the Biennial also reflects the cultural evolution of the city that hosts it. Thus, the first editions in the 1980s, filled with enthusiasm and a desire to connect with the national scene but with very limited exhibition spaces, were followed by an expansive phase that benefited from the cultural flourishing of the city itself in the final decades of the 20th century. Today, the Photography Biennial has become institutionalized, being shown in almost all the exhibition spaces of public and private institutions.

In its 18 editions, more than 300 exhibitions have been organized with more than 2,500 photographers representing 50 countries around the world. The interest in each biennial persists in presenting established artists alongside younger ones who see this event as the most important international showcase for their work.

This 2025 edition features a total of 21 exhibitions and a series of complementary activities (conferences, workshops, roundtables, screenings, book presentations) designed to increase awareness of new technologies applied to photography, especially Artificial Intelligence (AI), and to better understand the closely related travel and street photography. Additionally, in collaboration with the Filmoteca de Andalucía, twelve short films and documentaries will reflect on the importance of photography in cinema.

In short, this is an image festival with a diverse range of content designed for an alternative audience, even with a high percentage of families. Therefore, the program covers a wide range of photography fields and the techniques used, from the most remote, such as direct charcoal with Fresson, to artificial intelligence applied through computer programs.

Two hundred artists with more than a thousand images will once again make Cordoba the center of attention of the national photography scene.

More information at https://bienaldefotografia.cordoba.es/.